This invention relates to patient monitoring equipment, particularly such monitoring equipment as used in hospitals, especially in intensive care facilities of hospitals.
Many forms of monitoring equipment are known and available, including systems in which provision is made in a console type of installation for the display and monitoring of a plurality of physiological parameters, usually including at least the patient's ECG, blood pressure, temperature and respiration. It has been quite common with equipment of this type to embody a multiplicity of monitoring facilities in a single console type apparatus adapted to be placed in a position adjacent the patient's bed, for instance in an intensive care unit.
It has also been known to incorporate the monitoring facilities for a plurality of patient parameters in a plurality of monitors adapted to be associated with each other. For instance, equipment of this kind has been known in which one unit or module incorporated an oscilloscope, and in which individual modules for the individual parameters were provided, for instance modules for developing signals to be fed to the unit incorporating the oscilloscope, such signals derived from the individual modules being representative of the ECG, blood pressure, temperature, and respiration parameters of the patient.
In most known forms of modular equipment of the kind just mentioned, the module or unit containing the oscilloscope is arranged within a cabinet or case structure having open space laterally at one side of the unit containing the oscilloscope, into which the separate modules for the ECG, blood pressure and other parameters may be inserted.
Although various of these prior art systems are effective in providing the desired monitoring of the several parameters, the prior arrangements are subject to certain disadvantages from a number of standpoints, including achieving maximum efficiency, economy, space utilization and convenient accessability of controls which are desirably provided for the equipment for monitoring the several parameters.
With the foregoing in mind the present invention provides a system having a base unit incorporating an oscilloscope and a multiplicity of modules any or all of which are optionally and alternatively useable with the base unit. According to the present invention the base unit not only incorporates the oscilloscope to be used for visual display of various parameters, but the base unit also incorporates the ECG circuitry and means for connection with a patient derived ECG signal source to be visually displayed. Appropriate power supply connection is, of course, also provided for the base unit.
By incorporating not only the oscilloscope but also the ECG circuitry in the base unit, provision is made for employment of the base unit only in situations requiring only the ECG signal monitoring, which is the parameter most commonly requiring monitoring. Thus, with the ECG monitoring capability incorporated in the base unit containing the oscilloscope, provision is made for monitoring the most commonly required parameter by employment of only a single unit and this is desirable both from the standpoint of equipment costs, and also from the standpoint of space occupied by the equipment, such space ordinarily being a high premium consideration, especially in intensive care units.
In accordance with the invention provision is also made for a plurality of modules or additional units which are adapted to be separably associated with the base unit in a stacked relationship, i.e., with the several modules positioned in superimposed relation to the base unit, rather than in side-by-side relation to the base unit, as in various prior art arrangements. In this way additional modules having means of connection with signal sources representative of other patient parameters may be associated with the base unit without requiring additional space laterally of the base unit, and this is an important consideration, particularly in certain areas such as intensive care units where the plan shape and size of the equipment is an important consideration.
According to the present invention provision is also made for alternative association of any one of several different modules adapted to handle different physiological parameters of the patient, with the base unit; and the invention provides for the stacking of a plurality of modules upon the base unit in any desired sequence, so that if initial monitoring is established with the base unit and any one of several different modules, any one of the other modules may be stacked upon the assembly when it is desired to extend the monitoring to a parameter not previously being monitored. With the equipment provided by the invention, this may be accomplished without removal or disconnection of any of the units already in use.
The foregoing facility for adding modules according to the parameters requiring monitoring provides virtually complete flexibility with respect to the parameters selected for monitoring and thus simplifies and facilitates use of the equipment by the hospital personnel.
The arrangement of the invention is also characterized by a number of additional desirable features including the fact that the physical and electrical connections between the modules and between the modules and the base unit are effected simultaneously by means of a common snap-on motion, which is of great advantage in the use of the equipment.
The interconnection of the modules and base unit also requires the use of no tools; and in addition, no loose connection wires or "pigtails" are employed for interconnections, which is also highly desirable from the standpoint of convenient use of the equipment in congested areas and under circumstances where rapid action may be of importance.
It will be observed that the flexibility of the equipment, including the flexibility of use of various of the modules with the base unit provides a system of connection which is of great importance to the user of the equipment, not merely to the manufacturer of the equipment, as in various prior art systems.
In addition to all of the foregoing, the arrangement of base unit of the present invention as referred to above is highly important from the standpoint of equipment investment required in a given hospital facility in order to provide the needed parameter monitoring for a group of patients. For instance, in use of the equipment of the present invention, a hospital may acquire a group of base units, each of which incorporates facility for ECG monitoring, for use with a group of patients, for instance in an intensive care unit; and a smaller number of the individual modules for the parameters other than the ECG monitoring may be acquired and kept "in stock" for use with individual patients where other parameters require monitoring.
Since all of the parameters other than ECG are used less frequently than the ECG monitoring substantial capital investment may be avoided which would otherwise be required in those monitoring systems of the prior art in which all of the parameters are incorporated in a single unit, regardless of whether or not several of those parameters are needed for a given patient.